Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.

[Tinuviel]

@faraday said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

but something doesn't have to be debilitating to be a legitimate, diagnosable disorder.

I mean. That sort of is the definition of a disorder. Debilitating, like the disorders themselves, is a spectrum. You still have a broken leg, regardless as to whether you can hobble around on crutches or are stuck in a wheelchair.

[faraday]

@tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I mean. That sort of is the definition of a disorder. Debilitating, like the disorders themselves, is a spectrum. You still have a broken leg, regardless as to whether you can hobble around on crutches or are stuck in a wheelchair.

Yes, which is why I was quibbling with the assertion that someone with just a mild "OC" didn't have a disorder.

[Tinuviel]

@faraday said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I mean. That sort of is the definition of a disorder. Debilitating, like the disorders themselves, is a spectrum. You still have a broken leg, regardless as to whether you can hobble around on crutches or are stuck in a wheelchair.

Yes, which is why I was quibbling with the assertion that someone with just a mild "OC" didn't have a disorder.

Except that's literally not what you said, as I quoted:

@faraday said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

but something doesn't have to be debilitating to be a legitimate, diagnosable disorder.

Keeping your pens neat on your desk, or organising things a certain way, is a compulsion. It might even be regarded as obsessive. Unless you have some serious impediment to your function, it's not a disorder.

Now, is it possible for such things to be a disorder? Most certainly. It's possible. As in not always. "I need to keep my shit organised" is not OCD, "I need to keep my shit organised or I'm fairly sure the entire country will be plunged into war and my family will burn alive" is OCD.

OCD isn't really about the compulsions, it's about the reason behind the compulsions.

[Auspice]

The issue I take with some of the noted 'cutesy' people is that... they don't have any compulsion. They aren't negatively impacted in any way.

It's just someone who likes to have their bathroom color coordinated. It's just someone who enjoys a bookshelf organized by authors. It's just someone who happens to ... also really like attention and has found that the 'hee I'm so OCD!' nets them that attention. I mean, a lot of people like those things! They just have that added 'I want attention from this' component.

So for those of us that aren't those 'some people' and have a legitimate disorder (because OCD goes way beyond 'likes to be organized' and some people with OCD aren't organized whatsoever because their compulsions manifest differently), it's a problem.

People who pull the cutesy shit and do things like that or call their mood swings 'bipolar' or treat any other number of mental health issues as what is, essentially, a joke just for attention... are hurting those who have actual mental health issues. Because it's almost a mockery for us, because it pulls attention to them. Remember: a lot of people who do have mental health issues tend to hide and to put people who are making a mockery of things in the limelight makes the rest of us look bad because look at the kind of people who are getting that attention.

Someone who is negatively impacted in some way... probably isn't out there giggling about it in the fashion I'm referencing (the 'hehe look at me being such a dork/airhead/so fun'). Which is why I'm disinclined to believe those that do.

[faraday]

@tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Keeping your pens neat on your desk, or organising things a certain way, is a compulsion. It might even be regarded as obsessive. Unless you have some serious impediment to your function, it's not a disorder.

Look, my family has OCD too and that's just factually incorrect. It is possible to have mild OCD, just as it's possible to have "mild" a whole lot of disorders. The impediment to your function does not need to be serious to qualify as OCD. But don't believe me, check out Psychology Today or a host of other actual resources on the subject.

I agree the term gets overused as @Auspice is griping about. So do ADD, depression, bipolar and other disorders. I'm not saying it's okay to joke about that or whatnot. I'm just saying that it is possible to have a mild, non-debilitating form of these disorders.

[Paris]

@tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Now, is it possible for such things to be a disorder? Most certainly. It's possible. As in not always. "I need to keep my shit organised" is not OCD, "I need to keep my shit organised or I'm fairly sure the entire country will be plunged into war and my family will burn alive" is OCD.

OCD isn't really about the compulsions, it's about the reason behind the compulsions.

'If I complete this before the time is up, the day will go well.' 'If I step on this crack, things will go well.' 'If I tap the wall, things will go well.' 'If I keep one foot against the baseboard going down the bathroom hall, things will go well.' 'If I reach my bed before four seconds, things will go well.'

This was basically my life as an abused kid. If I just did all of the rituals right, maybe mom wouldn't attack me later. If I did the rituals right, maybe bro wouldn't pin me to the wall later. If I did all the rituals right...

For my mom, it was, 'if I don't keep the house pristine, people will talk.' 'If I don't keep my middle child pristine, people will talk.' So she controlled obsessively everything I wore, ate, said, how I was allowed to move. If I even dropped a glass of water, I was punished. If I read a book in public, I was punished. If I ate more than I was allowed BUT conversely I was forced to eat great amounts of things I hated, just to show me very agitatedly that PEOPLE WOULD TALK. If I had any pinchable fat on my body, I was starved. If my siblings acted out, I must be punished, as they had obviously 'caught' it from me: they were 'perfect'. (They were not, they smoked, did drugs, etc.) It was never clear to me why this was particularly bad or good or whatever to her, but she was completely fixated on this obsessive ideal of perfection and somehow I was the shit on the stainless tile floor of her life.

But you know, everyone knew my family was fucked, they talked anyway, so she clamped down harder. It was all to avoid this great consequence.

However:

My brother couldn't walk five steps without twitching his head when he was stressed. He collected a collection of tics and got ever more rigid about things. He started to leave obsessive memos all over the house: 'Parisplayer is a loser.' 'A winner does this, a loser does this.' He obsessed over his popularity, he obsessed over my dad being an asshole who liked my unemotional self over him; he obsessed over keeping my mom and I at odds. He obsessed at being head of the family. I'm pretty sure he did quite a few other things, it's only in hindsight that I saw how elaborate and fixated he got. He's on meds, but apparently still quite overcontrolling, at least toward my mom and my sister. He actively believes that I 'contaminated' the family and must be cut out (I figure he picked up on this from mom), and saw my cancer as something I deserved. Losers get sick. Losers die. That's what they deserve, because they're filthy.

Both he and my mother were extremely upset that I was a nerd who was not particularly interested in being popular and MIGHT be queer. This was not just 'ugh that nerd' but like fixated, agitated freakouts to be corrected with highly ritualised behavior lest (to my brother) the sky crack open and the devil, I shit you not, consume our house. I was the cause of all strife and all sin (you know, unlike his drug use), and if I could just be somehow either fixed or removed, all will be well.

When I got away, they started on my sister (formerly the perfect one), who'd initially followed their example but then matured into an interestingly independent person-- but she wants to be loved, so she puts up with it. She doesn't, thank god for her, have OCD. She's got anxiety, but gee, I wonder why.

I am fortunate that in seeing how destructive unmedicated severe OCD, combined with enabling and destructive behavior, will damage your relationships; and how OCDs yammering and panic in your brain will bring about foolish behavior. I am extremely extremely fortunate that I am so disassociative, (see above) because one part will yammer and the other will try to put on the brakes if it can. So I still check the door because the circuit to finishing the action didn't complete if I just do it automatically, so I have Bot watch. So I feel horrified at touching the dirty dishes, but I haven't gotten sick yet, so I do them even if I want to vomit-- and I buy paper plates. There's a lot I'd like to manage better, but my household gets along, my sweetie is taken care of as best I can manage, and the house hasn't burned down yet.

So no, having to arrange your books by color isn't a disorder. I, personally, have to arrange my garden and my art really symmetrically or I get frustrated looking at the bad angles, but that's not disorded even if it is obsessive. In the case of art, it made me a better artist (disorders do come with strange payoffs sometimes), who has been willing to labor for days on a work to make it just right, so someone fixated on book colors could possibly turn that into a decorating asset.

I know this is long, sorry.

Edit: I came out of that with an eating disorder (yes, diagnosed) as well, just like my mom! And a completely distorted body image. But I mostly manage that these days, and Bot has been a great help.

None of this was caused by my adoptive grandparents, by the way; they were great and a source of real comfort to me as a kid. (So my brother obsessed and succeeded in acquiring the things they left to me.) My biological grandparents, however, well, I don't need to detail that clusterfuck. My mother's siblings are almost all mentally ill to some degree or other. I really fear for my nephews and nieces and I have no idea how my family line has made it to this day.

[Packrat]

Well, or at least versions of said disorders that are heavily medicated and rigorously clamped down on thanks to therapy and attempts at mental discipline to limit the impact.

I am externally seeming a quite successful person who should be happy but I have probably lost 1/3 to 1/4 of my life to depression, I have absolutely run into people who have said things like 'I was made redundant once and I was so depressed for a few weeks!' or 'I was so depressed when my mother died!'

The way to engage with that is not to mock them or outright confront them, it is to ask them. Now imagine if you felt like that all of the time? Remember the immediate aftermath of a family member dying. Imagine if that was your default state thanks to fucked up brain chemistry and you felt like that even when everything was going fine and your life was good?

[Tinuviel]

@faraday said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

The impediment to your function does not need to be serious to qualify as OCD.

Depending on how one defines seriousness. If it impacts your life in a negative way that is not easily disregarded or routed around, that's a serious impediment.

@faraday said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I'm just saying that it is possible to have a mild, non-debilitating form of these disorders.

To be a disorder, it has to be debilitating in some way.

@faraday said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

check out Psychology Today

Psychology Today is a 'popular psychology' magazine, it's not a peer-reviewed journal. And I certainly wouldn't simply take the word of someone that just so happens to be advertising his book on a related subject. ETA: Especially when the author in question is "a Professor of Communication Studies, presenter, private coach, and author," and not a psychiatrist.

I will, however, draw from the DSM-IV (I haven't managed to justify getting the fifth edition just yet):

"DSM-IV Definition of Mental Disorder

Features
A
a clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual
B
is associated with present distress (e.g., a painful symptom) or disability (i.e., impairment in one or more important areas of functioning) or with a significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom"

@packrat said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

'I was made redundant once and I was so depressed for a few weeks!' or 'I was so depressed when my mother died!'

One must remember that 'simply' being depressed and having depression are very different. When bad or unfortunate things happen, people become depressed, without suffering from a depression disorder. So, they're right.

[Paris]

So I commend @Auspice on where she's at with her diagnosis despite our differences, as I am quite familiar with the horror of completely dysfunctional OCD, and I hope that she has the strength to continue grappling with it.

[Auspice]

@tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@packrat said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

'I was made redundant once and I was so depressed for a few weeks!' or 'I was so depressed when my mother died!'

One must remember that 'simply' being depressed and having depression are very different. When bad or unfortunate things happen, people become depressed, without suffering from a depression disorder. So, they're right.

It's like how I mentioned being a 'major depressive' earlier in the discussion.

People get depressed. It is a Thing That Happens. But some of us have it as a function of mental disease where no matter what's happening in life, we are depressed. Everything can be going well! ...and we're depressed.

I've learned to identify when I'm depressed as a result of depressing things or when I'm depressed as a result of the illness. It's helped me know when I have to adjust my medications or when I need to just reach out to friends for a pick-me-up (close friends are probably familiar with my 'hey talk to me and tell me stories' days).

And yeah, @Paris has familiar stories there. The OCD worsens when I'm stressed. I don't have those horrifying 'must clean/organize in the middle of the night' times often, but they happen when I'm really stressed out and I didn't identify that for a very long time. When I was younger (a teenager), I thought it was just... oh! I need a change of pace! It's time to clean! when I'd end up reorganizing my entire room and cleaning it from top to bottom in the middle of the night, but looking back it'd always happen when my family life was at its worst and I'd be internalizing a lot of stress. I'd end up awake 24-48 hours straight just cleaning, organizing, rearranging furniture, itemizing everything... because since I had no control over THAT part of my life, I was taking control of THIS part of my life.

I've not been able to fully break a lot of those habits, but I've gotten out of some of them. I don't always need the volume on multiples of 5 anymore (2s, 8s, and things like '23' since 2+3 adds up to 5 are okay now). That's been a big one since I know it actually bothers a lot of people for me to adjust the volume. Or... if it didn't bother them, they liked to tease me with it a lot. So flexibility has been ... really, really important to learn.

[Paris]

@auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

but looking back it'd always happen when my family life was at its worst and I'd be internalizing a lot of stress. I'd end up awake 24-48 hours straight just cleaning, organizing, rearranging furniture, itemizing everything... because since I had no control over THAT part of my life, I was taking control of THIS part of my life.

Every time we're starting to struggle financially, I have to do a grocery. I am not at ease unless there's enough food in the house for at least four meals. And not like just annoyed, either, terrified. I feel like if I can just feed us that night, the next day will be okay. If I don't, calamity!

[Auspice]

@paris said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

but looking back it'd always happen when my family life was at its worst and I'd be internalizing a lot of stress. I'd end up awake 24-48 hours straight just cleaning, organizing, rearranging furniture, itemizing everything... because since I had no control over THAT part of my life, I was taking control of THIS part of my life.

Every time we're starting to struggle financially, I have to do a grocery. I am not at ease unless there's enough food in the house for at least four meals. And not like just annoyed, either, terrified. I feel like if I can just feed us that night, the next day will be okay. If I don't, calamity!

Growing up we always had enough food, I will say. We were never badly off (even if my dad liked to act like we were because beyond food and a roof, he never wanted to provide for us kids; we had to wear holes through our clothes, we only got taken to the doctor for emergencies, etc....... he had a really, really healthy retirement fund cuz he wanted money for him and my mother). It was the fighting. They fought. He was abusive to her. Abusive to us.

But I understand THAT because of how my twenties were. I was poor. Then my marriage was a mess. So oh man do I understand that. I keep my kitchen hella well stocked now. Every paycheck my routine is: pay bills, get groceries. Even if I probably have enough to last until the next paycheck, I get more. And not just the routine milk+bread+eggs, I make sure to pick up stuff for a couple meals, too. I went way too long while married with bare pantry and an empty 'fridge. The security of a stocked kitchen keeps this part of me calm.

[Ganymede]

@tinuviel

The DSM-IV also admits that there is no precise definition of a mental disorder, and encourages the user to keep an open mind about it.

[Tinuviel]

@ganymede said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@tinuviel

The DSM-IV also admits that there is no precise definition of a mental disorder, and encourages the user to keep an open mind about it.

It does indeed. Though I've found that to mean 'the definition is evolving as we learn more' not 'just ignore what we just said.'
It's the best definition we have now, and I'd appreciate that such terms are used as accurately as we have presently defined them.

[Ganymede]

@tinuviel

You can prefer it all you want, but I do remember why I scored full points on that question in university.

Besides, the DSM-V is coming out this year. Like they promised years ago.

[Tinuviel]

@ganymede said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

You can prefer it all you want

I prefer it because that's how words work. We can't have a discussion about disorders if we can't agree on what disorders are. The DSM is the standard classification of mental disorders according to the American Psychiatric Association. So I'm going with their definition, even if it's constantly evolving to the point where next month I'll be wrong.

[Thenomain]

@faraday said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I mean. That sort of is the definition of a disorder. Debilitating, like the disorders themselves, is a spectrum. You still have a broken leg, regardless as to whether you can hobble around on crutches or are stuck in a wheelchair.

Yes, which is why I was quibbling with the assertion that someone with just a mild "OC" didn't have a disorder.

They do if they liked The OC.

[faraday]

@tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Psychology Today is a 'popular psychology' magazine, it's not a peer-reviewed journal. And I certainly wouldn't simply take the word of someone that just so happens to be advertising his book on a related subject. ETA: Especially when the author in question is "a Professor of Communication Studies, presenter, private coach, and author," and not a psychiatrist.

Fine, you want an actual study? Here. Or perhaps you'd like to check out the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale or the Sheehan Disability Scale commonly used to grade anxiety disorders, of which OCD is one.

Distress is not the same as disability or a debilitating illness. These are specific medical terms with specific meanings, and mild disorders can be diagnosed when the distress is, as the name implies, only mildly disruptive. (Mildly from a clinical standpoint. It can still be challenging to deal with.)

But what do I know? I've only spent the past year or so working with therapists trying to help a kid with OCD.

[Tinuviel]

@faraday said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Distress is not the same as disability or a debilitating illness.

Distress was covered in the above definition.

Mild disorders are a thing, I've not denied that. They are still, by definition, debilitating in some way. And as you've said, mildly from a clinical standpoint is not the same as mild in everyday parlance. If they're challenging to deal with, that sounds to me like a debilitation.

[Paris]

@faraday What we're having an issue with is the concept that it's a disorder if, say, you just don't like your books arranged any other way than by color.

Yes, that is mildly obsessive-compulsive in the absolute mildest sense (I experience it myself with asymmetrical things and repeating patterns), but it's not a disorder. Being a kid with OCD was a real challenge in navigating day to day life because so much of my time was wrapped up in endlessly engaging in pointless but necessary behaviors in order to extend imagined control over my life and what I imagined (or what actually would) happen to me.